Specialist retail insights and advice

The retail landscape is rapidly evolving. New technology, new sales channels, consumers with different demands, changing shopping habits and cautious confidence levels present challenges and opportunities. Retailers ready to innovate and adapt to new ways of attracting customers will do well but keeping pace needs specialist support. BDO is experienced in serving the retail industry and helping clients respond to change and identify opportunities for growth.

How BDO can help

Retail business provides many exciting opportunities with great scope for innovation. It also requires efficient systems and structure around financial reporting, tax and corporate modelling. At BDO, we provide practical financial advice on everything from tax planning and mergers, to auditing and risk advisory. We also offer services that go beyond traditional accounting, including access to data that will show you exactly what’s going on in your business – and the wider industry.

We work alongside a broad range of well-known Australian and international retail clients, from successful family owned and managed businesses to larger private businesses, franchises, ASX-listed companies and international corporations. Our clients are in all growth phases and from diverse sectors, including fashion, technology and fast moving consumer goods.

Talk to us about how we can help you. Our team can assist with:

New technology available to support your retail business
Operational performance improvement
Evolution of traditional retail business models
Cutting-edge daily data and analytics
Fraud and loss prevention
Acquisitions, disposals and initial public offers
Maximising changes in indirect and direct tax legislation.

Our connections and experience see us working closely with retailers, banks, private equity houses, brokers, lawyers and property professionals who specialise in the retail sector. We can help combine these resources to help your business succeed.

More about our services

Our detailed knowledge of the retail industry and partner-led approach can help you achieve the best commercial outcomes for your retail business. Our advisory teams have specialists to help in the following areas:

Performance improvement: financial strategy and analysis, refining operating models and process re-engineering
Corporate finance: financial modelling, valuations, due diligence, mergers and acquisitions, succession planning and general corporate advisory
Risk advisory: risk management, internal audit, corporate governance, probity and IT systems review
Business recovery and insolvency: business turnarounds, corporate and personal insolvency
Forensic services: computer forensics and corporate investigations
Fraud: special investigations
Transaction analysis and recovery: risk-free, contingency-based analysis of direct and indirect costs
IFRS 15 for the retail industry.

Read more about BDO’s advisory services.

Our audit professionals can help you improve systems and processes for external financial reporting. We also help you keep up-to-date with changing regulatory requirements such as International Financial Reporting Standards. Using our proven international audit methodology, we focus on key financial areas and provide constructive ideas for improving your organisations’ internal controls and business systems. Retail business audit services may include:

External audits
IT reports and investigations
Probity and process advisory
Technical accounting services.

Read more about BDO’s audit services.

Our business advisers work with you to ensure your business succeeds by driving growth, value and profitability. Supporting entrepreneurs, private clients and owner-managed businesses of all sizes, our people have deep industry knowledge and extensive experience in delivering:

growth strategies
tax solutions and compliance
wealth creation and management strategies.

Read more about BDO’s business services.

BDO is committed to helping retailers increase revenue and profit through improved store conversion. We use an innovative system called Reveal to measure your existing sales opportunities, and success in converting those opportunities into sales. Reveal’s hardware/software solution integrates with your point-of-sale system to provide accurate store visit-to-conversion rates and customer-to-staff ratios. The real-time dashboard provides store managers and support office teams with a clear overview and intuitive insights to help make decisions and implement changes to enhance performance and improve profits. We work with retail teams to use Reveal data to:

Optimise staff rosters
Create the appropriate commission structure for sales staff
Guide you on how to improve individual sales staff performance
Identify and act upon trends and patterns
Budget and forecast based on historical data patterns
Understand the effectiveness of marketing campaigns.

Read more about our data analytics services.

Retail businesses can incur significant compliance costs attempting to work out which taxes apply to their business transactions. There are also the administrative costs associated with paying, collecting and claiming credits, and remitting GST on sales and purchases, which can be substantial. As a retail business, it’s vital to maximise your tax opportunities and ensure compliance in a complex environment. From corporate and international tax to franchise services, our tax specialists can help with:

Indirect taxes, FBT, GST, R&D and customs duty
Pre year-end tax planning and tax returns
Tax provision and deferred tax preparation and review
Dispute resolution and tax audit management
Tax policy advice including submissions to governments
Foreign investment into Australia
Corporate restructures, acquisitions, investment and divestment
Outbound investment, repatriation of offshore funds and foreign tax management
Branch, subsidiary, limited partnerships, hybrids and trusts
Double tax agreement management
Thin capitalisation planning
Transfer pricing and supply chain management.

Read more about BDO’s tax services.

Sector spotlight: Franchise advice and support

The franchising industry faces a unique set of challenges, including economic volatility, heightened international competition, and legislative challenges. In today’s crowded and competitive environment, success depends on swift management decisions, solid relationships between franchisees and franchisors, and the anticipation of future trends. Our franchising professionals work with emerging franchisors, multi-unit franchisees, private equity firms, and publicly traded entities. We provide services across a wide range of areas for franchisors and franchisees:

Strategy, business advisory and performance monitoring
Buying or selling a franchise
Bookkeeping, reporting, and payroll compliance
Debt advisory and finance assistance
Due diligence
Risk management
Systems, policies and processes.

What our clients say

frank body, inspiring tomorrow

frank body

INSPIRING TOMORROW

Working with BDO provides our investors comfort - someone external is telling us what we are doing well and what we need to work on and helping us formulate an improvement plan.

Steve RowleyCEO, frank body

Fonz Moto

Fonz Moto

INSPIRING TOMORROW

We value our partnership with BDO because they're on the same trajectory as us. They understand our values and what we're trying to achieve with sustainability, not just in terms of the environment, but also our social values.

Michelle Nazzari CEO, Fonz Moto

Circonomy, Inspiring Tomorrow

Circonomy

INSPIRING TOMORROW

It’s all about equity. And we look to support all abilities to provide valuable and viable employment opportunities to people. We're talking meaningful employment that shifts and changes people's perspectives of themselves, that you won't find in a daily or monthly report.

Yas GrigaliunasFounder & Chief Evangelist, Circonomy

Retail insights

Meet our industry leader

Salim Biskri

National Leader, Retail
Partner, Audit and Assurance

Contact us

Contact our team to discuss your needs using the request for service form.
Alternatively, call 1300 138 991 to speak with an adviser in your nearest BDO office.